Organize Your Crafts

Guest post by Sarah Titus

If you are a craft lover, you probably have crafting supplies stacked in every corner of your house. This can be quite frustrating when you are crafting and having trouble finding your supplies. Figuring out a way to organize your crafts can be just a little challenging, but if you break it down into steps it can be very easy to do.

1. Evaluate Your Space

Take a look around your crafting area and the space that you have available to you. †In a dream world, we would all have a whole room devoted to our crafting, but sometimes that is just not possible. If you have a craft room, you†will have a much easier time getting things organized. If not…… it’s okay because with a little creative thinking, you can turn a small space into a craft lovers dream. Do you have space for a shelving unit, a table, or some bins? Evaluate the space you have and begin thinking about ways you can organize your crafts.

In my garage, I have several pantry’s lined up against the walls. I can still park my car, and it allows a ton of otherwise unusable space for me to store a lot of my crafts. Inside one of the pantry’s, I have the plastic white crate bins for drawers. Two drawer sets can fit stacked on top of each other when you take off the wheels, inside one pantry. Everything is hidden, tucked away, nice and neat, and I can get to everything very quickly and nothing looks like a mess. If you have a labeler, you can even label the drawers and make it even more organized.

2. Divide Into Categories

Most craft lovers end up having a love of different kinds of crafts. It is easier to organize if you keep these items separate from one another. Write down all the different crafts that you love to do on a sheet of paper and the supplies needed for each. While youíre at it, make a list of most used supplies….the ones that are needed for multiple different kinds of crafts like scissors, glue, hot glue gun, paint and such. These items you will want to have within arms reach to work on all your crafting projects.

3. Organize Your Craft Supplies

Once you have your list of what you love to do and what is needed to complete each type of project, you will want to start organizing. Start working on organizing your most used items first, the ones you will need for almost every project. Keep these in plain sight and within an arms’ reach of your crafting table. Once you have your most used items organized and in place, you can work on your different crafting categories. If you have a shelving unit you can organize a lot of items in bins and baskets. Make sure that everything is clearly labeled with everything that is inside the individual bins. I have had great success with the clear bins with lids at the local craft store. I like to take a picture of everything before I put it inside the container and then attach a picture to the front of the bin to help me locate it quicker when I need it. The lids on the storage bins make it much easier to stack them which will help you get the most use out of your space.

4. Organize Your Projects

Now that you have your supplies organized, it is a must to organize your projects. It is not uncommon for crafters to have multiple projects going at once. It is important to have a space to organize these projects until they are complete. If you have a spare table to hold your projects, that would be great. If not you might want to think about adding additional shelving on the walls to hold all your projects. Shelving on the walls works great if you have a small area that you are working in. It keeps them up and out of harms way. Be as creative as you can. In my house, I have a desk that is more like an entertainment center, where the whole thing shuts up with doors and has drawers. It’s very easy to organize and put things up and out of the way behind a door. My end tables also have drawers, making even more space to store things. My coffee table has drawers, my entertainment center has doors, why even that beautiful grandfather clock has doors to keep things put away. On the top of my desk are decorative bins to keep things I need close, but also hidden and clutter-free. Everything has a spot, and there is a place for everything.

5. Set Aside a Cleaning Day

Now that you have your crafting material and projects organized, it is a must to set aside a day either every two weeks or once a month to re-organize everything. Take this time to check your supplies to make sure they are all in the correct space and re-organize as needed. This will also help you save money as you can keep a running list of the things you are running out of. This way, you can start looking for sales now, instead of waiting until you completely run out of the item and are forced to pay, UGH, retail. Sorry, that is a bad word in our home. lol. As your crafting projects change, so will the way you need to organize them. You will find that some things are not working as well as you thought and you may need to change them around a little bit. It is YOUR space and over time you will learn what works best for you. Just keep maintaining the idea that everything has a place. It will become very easy to find everything once everything has a designated space.

Do you have a great way to organize your crafts that has worked well for you in your home? Leave me a comment! I would love to hear about your idea!

Sarah is a stay-at-home mom of two wonderful children. Her passion is showing other women in practical ways, how to quit the 9-5 and be able to be home with their little ones as well. From homeless to well-off, this single debt-free mom is most known for her ability to live well on $18k/year. Sarah loves encouraging others that dreams do come true if they are willing to consistently work for it. Follow her blog: Saving Money Never Goes Out of Style.